Mastering the PSM III: The Path to the Peak (of Scrum Certifications)

Navigating the labyrinth of Scrum certifications can feel like preparing for an ultra-marathon. The pinnacle, the Professional Scrum Master III (PSM III), is not merely a test of knowledge but a thorough examination of your deep understanding of Scrum—and your ability to express it precisely under time constraints. As someone who needed a 95% score to advance as a PST candidate, I’ve faced the hurdles firsthand. Here’s how I conquered them.

General considerations

At the time of writing (April 2024), the PSM III costs $500$. It consists of 24 questions over 150 minutes. The test is open-book and consists of English essay questions only. Copying and pasting of pre-prepared answers is not possible. A code of conduct applies. Measurements to detect copyrighted or AI-generated answers are in place.
A 👉🏻 PSM I or 👉🏻 PSM II certificate is not required but is strongly recommended to tackle the PSM III assessment.

Foundations First

Ensure your basics are rock-solid. Every element of the guide should be at your fingertips, summarized in crisp sentences. Returning to the roots helped me to prepare. IMHO, it is essential to understand Scrum’s origin, essence, and purpose.

Dive into how empiricism is helpful in complex product development. Understand how the Scrum Values establish trust (and why trust is needed for a stable foundation of transparency, inspection and adaption).

Get to know the leadership style needed to establish these foundations and how to foster it. Why are self-management and cross-functionality key to solving complex problems?

Be sure you know where Scrum comes from and which problems it addresses. Understand the essence and purpose of this framework and why it is purposefully incomplete. If you had to reduce it to one single element, what would it be? And why? And again, why is the concept of “Done” so crucial?

These are the basics for successful Scrum. Thus, these are the basics for passing the PSM III, too.

I found it helpful to research how the Scrum Guide itself has changed over the years: 30 years of Scrum (German) (I wished this blog post had been written before my assessment preparation 😎)

Answering like a Pro

When it comes to answering questions, structure is your friend. Here’s a strategy and structure I learned from Simon Reindl that served me well:

1. Breathe: Take a deep breath right after you read the question to oxygenate your brain and manage stress.
2. Mic Drop: Then start with a compelling first sentence: make it your main message – and make it memorable.
3. Tie your answer back to the foundations, e.g.:
   1. Reference the Scrum Guide: What does it say about the issue?
   2. Empirical Process: How does the situation relate to empirical process control? Is it increasing or decreasing transparency, enabling or disabling inspection, exercising or blocking adaptation?
   3. Scrum Values: Can you tie your answer back to the Scrum values? How are they affected? How could they help?
   4. Self-management: How are cross-functional, self-managed teams playing into the questioned situation? How could they help?
   5. Done: How is the situation helping or hindering the delivery of usable, valuable increments? Value discovery through feedback and decreasing risk?
4. Personal Insight: Briefly, what has been your practical experience with this? When have you applied it effectively?

Before you tackle the assessment, you should do the following:

Practice

Practice by explaining the Scrum framework in 5, 10, and 20-minute segments. For every element come up with a short and concise description – and a slightly more descriptive explanation of the why behind the element, together with where you have seen the element working in your personal experience. The Scrum Glossary along with the Scrum guide itself is of great help here.

Practice by doing sample questions. In addition to Scrum.org’s entry-level open assessments, Sandra Said pointed me to “52 Challenging Scrum Cases,” which are perfect for practicing the structure above. Simon Kneafsy also offers some free (and paid) “PST proven” sample questions to practice along with additional preparation tips.

Practice to get precise and concise! One of my main challenges was running out of time! This will probably be true for you as well. The assessment will not allow for “waffling”.

Get to the point quickly! So:

Time Management is Key

The test puts you under massive time constraints to assess your capability to remain focused and concise while explaining Scrum. So, not running out of time is a major challenge in this exam!

The assessment consists of 24 questions over 150 minutes, which means roughly 6.5 minutes per question. So, it is crucial to stay focused and concise! No waffling.

Use clear and concise wording that is fully aligned with the Scrum Guide. Abbreviations are okay as long as the grader knows what you mean. It helps to introduce an abbreviation and then use it throughout the exam. This saves typing time and might be useful as the common copy-and-paste functionality is not available for the exam. Be aware of wrong abbreviations: “Product Backlog(=PB)” is fine! Simply abbreviating “Product Backlog” with “backlog” is not. I used Apple’s text abbreviations shortcuts, for that matter. Interestingly, at the time of writing this blog post, these shortcuts are still in place on my MacbookPro 😎

The PSM III is not an English grammar test. Scrum.org is fully aware that there are non-native english speaker as test-takers. So errors are fine. Use bullet points to make your point. Stick to the question. If the question asks for 3 examples, give three examples (and show it to the grader by using numbers!)

The exam leaves no room for waffling. Short, concise wording is key!

Other considerations

Get into the right headspace.

Before the exam, also ensure you’re mentally prepared. Hydrate, handle personal needs and inform your family that you’ll need uninterrupted focus. So give food to the cat, a fully charged iPad to the kids, empty your bladder, and fill your glass of water. Starting with a quick open assessment can help gear your mind into ‘assessment mode’.

Stick to the data provided.

Although the essay questions try to give you a good picture of the situation to be tackled, you will lack context! So do not hallucinate what is not written there. Avoid filling the gaps with unfounded assumptions. Stick to the data provided. AND feel free to assume a certain situation – but make sure you flag that as a possibility. It might not be true for everything and everybody, but in the end, we are handling complex problems here, aren’t we?

There is not the one single correct answer.

Talking about complexity: There is not the one correct answer. However, there are many false answers. These include those that do not follow the Scrum Guide, do not foster the Scrum values, do not respect the Scrum framework, impede delivering done increments of value, empiricism or self-management, and the like.

Add a personal touch.

The exam assesses human judgment (and is graded by a human), so infuse your responses with personal anecdotes and examples (briefly!). This human element can set you apart from others (at least from ChatGPT) and demonstrates deep comprehension and practical application of Scrum.

Be ethical.

Always adhere to Scrum values in your responses. Ethical behavior is not just expected but scrutinized. Your answers should reflect a sound moral compass and a clear understanding of ethical practices within Scrum environments. You might be challenged here, too.

Learn from others.

Review the journeys of others (1, 2, 3) who passed that exam, or feel free to contact me directly if you have questions.

Summary

Preparing for the PSM III exam is less about rote memorization and more about demonstrating a profound and practical understanding of Scrum. By mastering the content, structuring your answers cleverly, and approaching the exam with the right mindset, you’re setting yourself up for success. So, take a deep breath, focus, and show them the depth of your Scrum expertise. Good luck, colleague-in-spe!

More resources

• Scrum.org’s resource page on passing the PSM III exam
• Watch Simon Reindl (former steward of the PSM class and one of my assessors in on my PST candidate path) giving valuable insights into how to prepare (68 minutes video length)